Dec. 7--Downtown Portland's Imperial Hotel will close Monday and reopen in May reborn as a more modern looking boutique named Hotel Lucia, its new Portland-based owners said Thursday. 

Terms of the sale, which is expected to close early next month, were not disclosed. Multnomah County records place the market value of the hotel at $6.11 million. 

The Aspen Group, a Portland-based consortium of four investors, will take over the hotel at a shaky time in the hospitality industry. 

Hotel occupancy rates plummeted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks amid a slump in travel. In Portland, occupancy fell by as much as 19 percent in September, and hotels reported losing millions from room and food cancellations, according to the Portland Oregon Visitors Association. 

"I wouldn't say it's not a concern," said Howard Jacobs, area manager for the Aspen Group. " '02 will certainly be a tough year for a property to open, but we're in it for the long haul." 

The Aspen Group also has a minority ownership stake in the Westin Portland, which is managed by parent company Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Jacobs said. He declined to reveal the group's other investments. 

Typhoon on Broadway, a Thai restaurant on the street level of the Imperial Hotel, will remain open through the remodel, except for two one- to two-week periods between January and May, Jacobs said. 
 

The Imperial Hotel, on Southwest Broadway and Stark streets, has been owned by Portland's Gentner family since 1950. The hotel's current structure was built in 1908.  Albert Gentner described his age, 72, as a bigger factor than the economy in deciding to sell the property. He has received one or two offers a year from suitors wanting to buy the hotel, but this time we "felt the time was probably right and the offer was right." Gentner will retain ownership of the Mallory Hotel, a few blocks from the Imperial.

Imperial Hotel  400 SW Broadway Portland, Oregon

Stephen Gentner, Albert Gentner's son and the Imperial's general manager the past 26 years, said he will check out guests for the last time Monday at 2 p.m., then throw a party for its 40 employees. He called the shutdown "surreal." 

"It really is like a family member," he said, adding that he's opting to pursue other employment opportunities. 

Gentner described business at the Imperial post Sept. 11 as "pretty darn slow" and a time in which he's dropped room rates 25 percent to about $75 to $85 a night. 

During the next six months, the Aspen Group will renovate the hotel's lobby and update its 128 rooms. Plans call for adding more dark woods to the public areas and chrome and stainless steel in guest rooms. 

"It will be a real sleek, hip boutique property unlike none other in Portland," Jacobs said. 

Typhoon will gain a street entrance and an updated bar that will better mesh with the hotel's lobby, he said. 

Jacobs declined to say how much the improvements will cost. 

The last renovations to the Imperial occurred in the early to mid-1990s, when the Gentners poured $7 million into it. 

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